[Spoilers] PBEM 62 - Ichabod's Thread, feat. Mardoc and retep

[Gawdzak]

Your start:

[retep]

Lost of info already

Let me adress some points.

Sandbox.- How far do you want to sandboxing things? The first 30t, the first50t, the whole game?
I also don't lnow why you need the exact number of tiles to make a sandbox.
Size, difficulty and wrap are the important things.

Opponents.- They're all good (at different things), Pindicator probably the best one overall but you have the best lurkers so the game is as god as won.

Picks.- I don't really want to push you to pick something you won't enjoy so I just watching from the sidelines for now, once you pick and the game start I try to help more.

Retep.- I'm going to nag you for updates every turn, I think the best way to keep focus is just always report. The presure of knowing that there is someone always watching will keep you from getting tunel-vision/made mistakes/play slopy. And you should know I always watching
I also going to trow random pictues from time to time to light the mood!

[Ichabod]

Initial thoughts on the start:

We need two techs, without a doubt: fishing and agriculture, to improve the food. But it doesn't seem possible

After that, it's not so obvious. I think we want to go for BW after that, since there's no more food resources for the worker to improve, so the most meaningful worker action after that is chopping. That makes a fishing/mining start tolerable. It's less beakers than agri/wheel, but it's faster to BW (although not in a significant way).

Victoria was the best pick, I believe. Beyond that, I believe SPI/EXP beats FIN/CHA and FIN/AGG. Since mining/fishing aren't unplayable techs, I think I'll pick Isabella.

I just realized that there's a chance a WB start (5hpt means a 4t WB) can compete with worker first, so starting with fishing would have that added benefit.

I could see Hannibal and Roosevelt competing in power with Isabella.

What do you guys think? Am I missing something? I didn't sim extensively, but enough to see that fishing/mining and agriculture/something are manageable. That was the purpose of this initial simming, so I guess we can pick based on that. I should probably sim WB/worker first start, but if we go for Isabella, that's a moot point for now, since we could go for both anyway.

[Ichabod]

Sandbox.- How far do you want to sandboxing things? The first 30t, the first50t, the whole game?

Opponents.- They're all good (at different things), Pindicator probably the best one overall but you have the best lurkers so the game is as god as won.

Picks.- I don't really want to push you to pick something you won't enjoy so I just watching from the sidelines for now, once you pick and the game start I try to help more.

I'll try to keep a sandbox for the whole game, even if I'll probably not sim that much after the first 50t or so.

If you could share some thoughts about picks, I'd be glad. Even if it's just what traits you think are the best ones.

Regarding opponents, I'm actually more interested in proving something to myself with this game than winning. Of course, having the best lurkers help one way or the other.

[Mardoc]

Isabella was probably my favorite before seeing the fish, which makes her even better. It depends how much of a rush you're in; maybe I'll think of something to object to when I sleep. Even if there's something wrong with her, I think she's a good choice. The most we could say is that she's not the best, but she can't be a disaster.

If you haven't picked by morning I'll maybe have more to say. If you have picked then I'll just focus on how to use her the best.

Workboat vs worker probably needs to be simmed to know. Especially when we have enough hammers to get the Exp bonus on that worker. I could see either working.

[retep]

Okay, before I saw the start I valued things like this:

Vicky
Hannibal
Frederick
Peter
Isabella
FDR

After seeing the start:

Vicky
Hannibal
Isabela
Frederick

I don't think EXP is that powerfull asuming you are playing somethings similiar that pbem61 mapwise. Vertical grow is really important.
PHI is probably the stronget trait if use well, then ORG and FIN. I miself value ORG higher than FIN (and maaaybe that is why there is only 2 ORG leaders ) but that just me.

If you go with isabela then going workboat-worker is stronger. I could sim something but I don't know what you are going to chosse yet

[Mardoc]

The thing is, Exp can help you grow vertically - it's just a roundabout path. You get to put the granary in with a single whip or single chop, making it go in a lot sooner. Then your city is growing and building things early, things like a temple or a market or a forge, that grant you more happiness. The same with all the hammers saved on workers, they're free to go into vertical growth just as much. I think it's rare to have enough hammers to build all the infra you want in a city.

Also, on a typical RB map, an extra city often means an extra empire-wide happiness. People like to put in those happiness resources, and they like to spread them out. Cha is realistically only +1 happy; the option to build a monument or Henge has a tradeoff that's painful.

That said, it's hard to argue with Fin. Especially on a lake map where you'll be working a lot of coast tiles on and off.

I guess a lot of it comes down the type of game you want to play. Do you want a bigger empire than everyone else, constantly trying to squeeze the last advantage from each city, civic, and hammer? Or do you want a smaller empire that's easier to run, where the bonuses come in automatically for doing things you want to do anyway? I think Isabella is stronger, if and only if you're willing to push her to the limit. She should be the fastest expander of the group, and there should be a lot of civic management involved, to make use of her benefits.

[Ichabod]

I'll post some more thoughts on the pick later.

[Mardoc]

I'll post some more thoughts on the pick later.

Cool. Now we get to try to optimize for England. I'm pretty busy in the next few days, I've got houseguests coming for the long weekend, but I'll try to help as I have time.

Some things that are worth simming:
- Worker vs workboat first
- Early tech order: when do we want Pottery, BW, Sailing? Do we want to try for a religion?
- Any early wonders worth trying for?

[Ichabod]

So, later becomes now, because I decided not to do something I was going to do.

I narrowed down the picks to three leaders: Hannibal, Isabella and Frederick. Then, I thought about it some more... And I ended up including Ragnar, FDR and Peter on the list, instead of choosing someone.

I decided to go back to what I was thinking about choosing before I saw the options and started dreaming about a leader that would give 3 commerce water tiles, faster granaries, no anarchy and the possibility of creative bulbing, all at the same time. What I wanted to have was a leader that is flexible and with a high skill cap, to inspire me to achieve a good level of play. That made me narrow things to SPI and PHI, because I got enticed with the thought of creative bulbing being used to surge ahead on the early game.

In the end, I thought it was finally time to put my money where my mouth and go for a SPI leader, like I've been insisting in all my past BTS games. Having it coupled with EXP and a fishing start gives no second thoughts about choosing it.

I won't say this was the most thought out decision, but at least I'm happy with my choice. I'm taking a day off today of some of my daily commitments, so I think I'll be able to heavily sim the start. I'll get my hands on the Map Script and do a new sandbox, than I'll post it in the thread. Expect some early simming done by the end of today.

So, I need to:

*Make a sandbox following the exact map settings.
- Is this the map script that was used to make this map: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=151629 ?

*Test to see which is best: WB or worker first. (I'll concentrate early simming on this because it doesn't depend on map exploration)
- Post what I find here for more discussion.